Alors, je suis de retour, considerez ceci…

Beckham has landed. Rather, The Beckhams have landed. LA Galaxy unveiled goldenballs this week, along with a brand new kit and badge, club colours, in fact pretty the only thing they haven’t done is rename the club ‘Beckham Soccer Club’. It’s all very exciting now, but I have a feeling this will turn out to be a bad move for Beckham, maybe even for the MLS. And maybe for Posh as well – recently recalled into the Spice Girls team, she may find the long commute between Hollywood and Abbey Road seriously affects her singing voice.

Incidentally, the author of this BBC article apparently has no idea who Beckham is or what year it is, bizarrely believing David was a teenager in the 1970s, saving up his cash for the latest Abba album. It also implies that the Blind Beggar pub is in Walthamstow, when it is miles away in Whitechapel. Come on, BBC, you can do better than this hackneyed twaddle.

And it’s new football kit time of year. I’ve been following all the new kits on this site – there do seem to be a lot of clubs switching to Umbro these days, don’t there? Umbro is seeing a resurgence. What I’ve noticed most this year is the way they’re all being marketed: 125th anniversary here, centenary there, Celtic are commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Lisbon Lions, Northern Ireland are celebrating 25 years since they were in the 1982 World Cup (which wasn’t even their last time there). Best of all, Arsenal have a new white away kit, marketed not as the ‘we-wish-we-were-Spurs-now’ kit, but the ‘Chapman’ kit, enticing people to buy it by associating it with their 1930s manager. Shameless.

Changing sports to baseball, this week San Francisco hosted the All-Star Game, American League versus National League. I saw some of it, on TV of course, it was quite fun, my wife tried explaining some of the rules to me, the fly-balls, the bases which can and can’t be over-run, all of that confusing fun. The most fun was reserved for the guys on the little boats in the bay, waiting for a home-run ball to come splashing their way (and from SF Bay to e-bay). There was even a little bulldog swimming around in a lifejacket. The thing I liked the most, though, was the poster for the event, a classic style.

Oh man, while I was out sketching in Sacramento last week, I lost my mechanical eraser. Listen, I had had this thing for about 18 years, it was my favourite sketching item and I just knew I’d lose it someday. I clip it to my bag or my shirt or wherever, I’m very lax, but I’ve had it since I was about 13 and managed not to lose it. So I have bought a replacement, and it’s just not the same.

I still managed to do some sketching this week: